Medicine: Imaginary Poverty

For most of the world's poor, poverty is real, and so omnipresent that
they can think of nothing else. But there are also a few oddballs
around who suffer from "imaginary poverty," Dr. Archibald
Beatson observes in the British Medical Journal. Theirs is a true
psychosis, says the Worthing (Sussex) physician, because it includes
two delusions: 1) that they cannot afford necessities, when in fact
they have plenty of money for luxuries, and 2) that "life on earth
will continue indefinitely." so they must not touch their capital
"for fear of compromising the security of this interminable
future." This emotional disorder,...